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Revisiting (and Reveling In) Karajan’s Bruckner

HvK's finest recorded achievement?

A few weeks ago, one of the first Bruckner recordings I ever owned on CD, Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic performing the Seventh Symphony (Deutsche Grammophon), stopped playing. During the finale, the CD started making some strange clicking noises, and then it suddenly stopped. It wouldn’t play on my computer either. The disc had died. Bummer.

My attachment to this recording being what it was, I sought a replacement, but the only way to buy the recording on CD was to buy a reissued box that DG had put out in their Karajan Symphonies edition. I ordered it from Amazon, and while I missed the artwork that graced the original series (the snow-covered angel wings, with each cover in a slightly different shade of blue/green), having the complete cycle in a convenient boxed set initiated a bout of intensive Bruckner listening I hadn’t done since my late twenties (egads, that was 20 years ago!).

My penchant for large symphonic works, especially of the mystical variety, was especially strong after I first discovered classical music in college, but in all of my years enjoying Bruckner’s music I only met a friend or two who really liked it. So it was with particular joy last night, when I played Karajan’s Bruckner Sixth, to hear my partner Brian yell enthusiastically from upstairs (we were at our place in the country, and I was downstairs blasting the disc away in our living room), “Wow, this is really fantastic. What a sound! He has one good idea after the next – amazing!”

I can’t recall the last time I heard a music-lover credit Bruckner with great ideas, but one of the things I love about Brian is that he listens with very unprejudiced ears, and despite his serious training in music, he doesn’t ever coolly dissect music of any kind when he hears it. I love listening to music with him.

As the Sixth unfolded I wondered if the fabulous sound I was hearing was because of a remastering of the disc that DG had done, or if my new stereo system was simply revealing beauties in this recording that I had never heard before. The finale of this symphony isn’t Bruckner’s strongest – yes, even a Bruckner lover must concede that his finales are somewhat weak by comparison with his other movements – but on the whole the entire work has a sweeping, cinematic quality to it – think medieval romance and adventure story – that I can’t resist.

Having listened to this boxed set now over the past couple of weeks, I’m convinced that Karajan’s Bruckner cycle for DG remains one of his finest achievements. While I can understand and appreciate a host of different interpretative approaches to Bruckner, Karajan’s way with the music couldn’t be clearer: For him, sumptuous, majestic sound is an absolutely essential element to a great Bruckner performance. And throughout Karajan’s cycle, Bruckner’s writing for strings and brass is revealed in all its ravishing splendor. Sure, other conductors have brought out more of the rustic grit of these works, but few can rival him for conveying their awesome power and mystery. Over and over again, as I listened anew, the gleaming BPO brass shone out with a transfiguring fire. Where other conductors are often undone by Bruckner’s tempi changes and abrupt transitions, Karajan presents each entire symphony in a single musical line, as though they have been cut from a single, shimmering cloth.

One thing that really amazed me in my Bruckner listening adventure over the past few weeks is all of the symphonies and not just the famous ones (such as numbers four, seven and eight) impressed me. The scherzos of the first two symphonies conjure up Schubert on some kind of drug (opium-laced incense perhaps?). How many other symphonies in the entire literature have a more brilliant coda than that which appears in the first movement of the Sixth? The celestial adagios of the Seventh and Eighth Symphonies are unquestionably towering masterpieces, but the slow movements of the Third, Fourth, Fifth and especially the Ninth are also utterly magnificent.

It’s now a wind and rain-swept Saturday night, and we’re three quarters of the way through tall Plymouth gin martinis and three quarters of the way through Bruckner’s Fifth Symphony. I remember all of the descriptions of this work, particularly “A Cathedral in Sound,” but what comes to mind for me right now is the burning conviction of the performance: at once reverential, monumental and transcendent. And, of course, it’s all more than a little strange! Right now, the brass chorales of the final movement are ringing out gloriously and Karajan could just as well be conducting the Mount Olympus Orchestra, as the sound the BPO is emitting is truly divine.

Bruckner’s works may never be popular, but in a way, I’m glad that’s the case. Somehow, their inaccessibility to some people only heightens their mystical appeal to me.

Note to readers: if you have a favorite Bruckner recording that you feel is absolutely essential listening, please do mention it in a comment. I’ve got a solid collection, but I’m always open for new discoveries.

Albert Imperato is co-founder of 21C Media Group, a classical music and performing arts PR, marketing and consulting firm. His on-line journal gives a window into the New York music world, as seen through the eyes of a leading PR guru.

Comments

The 70s DG Bruckner 7th is my alltime favorite CD. And I have some 20 thousand. I don't believe any subsequent reissue has been remastered, including the Japanese SHM-CD release of the whole cycle 2 years ago.

I wonder whether complete cycles are often better regarded than the sum of their parts? The 'sixth' featured here received a somewhat lukewarm welcome from RO in Gramophone on first release and Karajan obviously didn't think enough of the work to programme it regularly if at all. I always think it a great pity that Karajan never completed his Sibelius cycle for EMI at around the same time; nos 3 and 7 are missing and the remaining performances, not least a 'sixth' highly regarded on first issue, seem to have slipped into relative obscurity.

This is a wonderful blog entry, Mr. Imperato! I too am a HUGE fan of Karajan's Bruckner....ALL of it including his digital Vienna Philharmonic Bruckner 7th and 8th recordings, the former his last recording....and am so happy that you reviewed the set here! Thank you! I owned the LPs with the wings pictured on the covers in the 1980s while in college and, as they became available, bought them singly on CD (although 1 and 5 were coupled in a two-CD set). When the new complete Karajan Symphonies Edition came out, I bought the whole thing and love it. The documentation is quite inadequate but the set has lots to offer!

And, by the way, I've heard from several music historian friends, performers, and other such Brucknerites that to many of them the 6th Symphony is their favorite of all! You wrote about the wonderful coda of its first movement....the extended horn and oboe "duet". I consider this one of the greatest moments of all Bruckner.

So glad you enjoyed the post. I love HVK's Bruckner 8 with Vienna too. I only saw Karajan conduct live once, at Carnegie Hall, around the time that the DG recording was made. He was very frail and could barely walk, and when the concert was over they just opened the doors on the side of the stage and he took his bows there instead of walking back to the podium. The audience went crazy - an absolutely unforgettable concert for me, and for everyone who was there I'm sure.

New Year Concert (HvK faking surprise at the cannon shot and, towards the end, the poignancy of his new year wish greeting in English, are incredible.)

Nabucco Overture (I would go anywhere to hear K conduct the last 2 minutes if he were alive)

Rosenkavalier (EMI)

Sinfonia Domestica

Parsifal

Beethoven 8, 9 (1977). The cassette version actually sounds better than the CD. Never heard the strings sound like that, in any other classical music recording I've heard (The Sibelius comes close though).

Comparing, say the Liszt and the Verdi, it's amazing they are from the same orchestra.

HVK's Shostakovich 10 was really a revelation for me and remains one of my all-time favorite recordings. I remember discovering that work in college, playing this HVK recording in my dorm room and sometimes turning it off because it was just too intense to listen to. One of my roommates honestly looked like he was going to jump out a window at some point if I didn't turn it off!

Have loved his Nielsen 4 for years as well (speaking of, do you know Myung-Whun Chung's BIS recording of Nielsen's Fifth? One of my favorite Nielsen recordings).

Will listen to Jochum's Bruckner 4 this weekend. Thanks for the great note!

Which of the two Schostakowitsch 10th recordings do you like best, Mr. Imperato? I was in grad school here in Illinois when I heard of the two Carnegie Bruckner 8th, Schubert "Unfinished", and Strauss Family waltzes concerts that HvK was to do with the Wiener Philharmoniker in February 1989. I wanted very badly to attend but school and funds intervened. I'm sure they were unbelievable, and I've read in other sources that they were.

I had a ticket to see him only once in Chicago with the Berliner Philharmoniker in October 1986 but, alas, he was ill with Lymes Disease (supposedly). I think he may have just been continuing his argument with them at that point, sad to say. It was wonderful to see him back to health on the occasion of the Neujahrskonzert in Wien 1987....that is a very special CD and DVD too! What a great performance all around!

Do you know of the Celibidache Bruckner 6 on laserdisc/VHS? I don't think it's made it to DVD yet but hope that Sony will get around to it some day. Would you like to see it?

Giulini's recordings of Bruckner's last three symphonies for DG are some of the best - especially the Seventh, long my favorite version. I don't know the recording he made of the Second Symphony, but I will put it on my acquisition list (which is growing by the day thanks to this post!).

What a wonderful post! A fellow Web Brucknerian linked me to this blog. It is refreshing to find people who do not fall into that contemporary Karajan bashing, pundits who praise the latest conducting mediocrity for merely existing in the world of SACD or other "superior" recording techniques when the performances are utterly void of historical insight (I don't mean HIP but rather the knowledge of social and musical situation in which the composer lived and communicated), lacking any emotional investment or will to serve the composer. Karajan was devoted to Music, capital M, and his embrace of technology was not to offer mixing board delights to entertain technopundits, but to serve solely as intermediary between, in this instance, Anton Bruckner and us. It is reassuring in a mad world to find such eloquent allies! My kindest regards to Mr Imperato and all of you.

And, by all means, do not deny yourselves the Bruckner 4 under Jochum on DGG (Berliners).

Yes, HvK was one of the greatest Bruckner conductors. That said I think I prefer Günther Wand`s Bruckner 4 with the BPO to anybody else`s. Similarly the 3rd movement of the 9th with Wand/BPO remains unrivalled in my ears.

Elsewhere it is a matter of tastes and opinions. I myself prefer the EMI seventies Bruckner 7 by HvK/BPO to the "final recording" and the seventies Bruckner 8 by the same team to the eighties one with HvK/VPO. And I prefer Giulini`s Bruckner 8 (with the VPO on DG) to any by HvK.

Talking about Bruckner 8 and HvK: There used to be a recording of it (1st movement missing) from 1944 with HvK and the Prussian State Symphony Orchestra in some precursor of stereo. It is amazing how little HvK changed his interpretation since then!

So far as I know HvK´s view of the 5th is the slowest there is (admittedly I haven`t heard Celibidache), and especially so in the slow movement. In fact I believe he is the only conductor (except Celi?) who takes at face value Bruckner`s marking of "sehr, sehr, langsam" (very, very slow). It is my favorite Bruckner 5 by a long way, thanks also to the BPO wonderful sound.

The trouble with the 6th in general is that after the glorious first movement it goes downhill: Fine adagio, reasonable scherzo, disappointing finale.

The two best Bruckner recordings I've heard to date are Karajan's live 8th at the 57 Salzburg festival (Orfeo), and Sir Reginal Goodall's 9th, recorded in 74 and released on BBC Legends. Neither has state of the art sound, but both are viscerally exciting and utterly coherent readings.

Please sign it; hopefully one day they'll take notice. Just recently they've started issuing DG Originals again; my hope is that they will issue the Karajan Bruckners in an Originals box set, preferably with 24/96 remastering, maybe even with the wonderful 1960s 9th thrown in as a bonus. Hey, I can dream!

An inspiring OP, Albert. I have just done exactly the same as Karafan (who may know me as Keraulophon on the R3 MB). Began with the 7th, then had to hear it straight through again, before continuing with the 8th!

I, like you, love the original artwork of snow-covered wings, especially at full size on the LP boxes I still have.

Perhaps not in the same visionary league as HvK, but Herbert Blomstedt's performances of the symphonies with the Leipzig Gewandhaus (his Dresden efforts I thought very fine) have been garnering much praise. The ongoing series from Querstand on SACD began with the 8th recorded at his last concert as director of the LGO in 2005. Now Nos. 3, 5, 6, 7, & 8 are available. I have only heard the 7th, but that has been enough to whet my appetite to get them all. Highly cultured, seemingly 'truthful', chamber music on a grand scale, absence of ego, sensitively and glowingly played. Someone remarked that 'it is like Blomstedt had found a secret document not read by anyone before him', and I can see what he meant.

While we endure the present Mahler anniversaries, we can be grateful for the heavenly balm of Anton Bruckner. 'Os Justi' is still ringing in my ears from singing it at Evensong a couple of days ago.

My most revelatory Bruckner recording is that by Christoph Eschenbach (!) and the Houston Symphony Orchestra (!!!) of my favorite Bruckner symphony, the Sixth. I auditioned it blindly along with six or seven other recordings of the piece, including the Klemperer (which I found insipid and dreadful), the Stein, the aforementioned Karajan (too mannered in the finale, alas, though magnificent in the first two movements; what an adagio!), the Jochum, and the Sawallisch, but found the Eschenbach to trump them all, primarily because his finale is so meaty. Usually it seems like an anticlimax but here it was as satisfying a conclusion as the finale of the Eighth.

Incidentally, the Karajan/BPO Bruckner Fourth was the very first CD I ever bought, and it remains indescribable. The sense of ecstacy in the strings as they build to the first big fortissimo outburst in the first movement is, to me, one of the great moments in recorded sound.

I've been listening to a fair bit of Bruckner lately. In this moment, I'm listening to Georg Tintner's recording of the Third (with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, on Naxos). While I purchased Tintner's complete set of the symphonies a decade or so ago, I still regularly go back to his grand performance of the Third - in its original version.

Another prized recording from the Bruckner catalogue: Klemperer's Sixth.

As for Karajan, I have spent a good deal of time last year listening to him and the BPO take on Siblelius' symphonies 4-7. Simply brilliant! Karajan is also the conductor who opened my eyes to the magic of Mahler's Ninth. I will have to delve into his Bruckner - thanks again for your thoughts!

Being a proud owner of this SHM set of Bruckner symphonies myself, I would like to know if you have any concrete evidence that it "wasn't remastered" at all like every other re-issues? I've also read with this very blog space that it was 'day and night' difference between the 'Karajan Gold' edition of Bruckner 7th and the original 'His last recording' issue...

Anybody can clarity such matters? I've actually struggled a long time with that original issue of Vienna 7th - upgrading my equipment even, in order to somehow match the merculine sound structure with the soft halo Karajan gave rise to this most forgiving of all music.

Doesn't the "Gold" really improve that much sound-wise? (Shostakovich 10 for that matter, anothe favorite of mine) I've wrestled even longer with the 60's Jesus Christuskirche version of Shostakovich - presumably closer to what Dimitri himself heard while the maestro brought his pristine band to Leningrad... But the sound seemed so restricted on my Japanese issue - those climaxes almost a pain to listen to: have anyone got any comments regarding the sound virtues of these 2 versions?

I wright you from Chile, South America (congratulations for your blog!), I am not a fan of Karajan, I had always considered him an "effectist and explosive" conductor, I like from him his Sibelius and his Brahms, not his Beethoven, not his Mozart or Mahler, but in this case I agree absolutely with you that this is a great integral (side by side with Jochums and Sckrowaczewskis versions), the 2th, 3th, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7h and 8th are exceptionals, perhaps the best of alls,and the sound is superlative too. like someone said here Its a pity that he never completed his Sibelius integral, his 1st is my prefered, for over Gibson, Berglund-Kelsinski, Ashkenazy-Philharmonia, Bernstein-Viena, and other minor versions like Sakari, Oramo, etc. Excuse my english, please. Best regards.oscar.olavarria

After listening to Haitink and the Concertgebouw, Karajan and the BPO, Corbez/Cincinnati on Telarc, I discovered my perfect Bruckner 6 in the OCD secondhand CD/DVD shop in Paris:

Sawallisch and the Bavarian Radio Orchestra on Orfeo. Sawallisch can produce a trkey, but he is wonderful when he gets his s together! This is superb and the clarity and ambiance is beyond other discs, even the DG with Karajan.

The great omission from this post of all time favorite Bruckner is Karl Bohm doing 4 and 7 with the VPO. The Vienna strings have greater definition than some of Karajan's more opulent textures. He also has a supreme sense of structure and counterpoint. I was surprised to see his seventh overlooked for other more famous versions. It is still one of my all time favorites. The fourth is rightly remembered as an all time classic.

I have been listening intently to classical music for 35 years, and am an avid collector. For the longest time I was not a fan of Bruckner, but when the bug bit it bit hard. Now I listen to mostly Bruckner, and long for the moment when I can anticipate what he will do next. Most people cannot get past the bombastic outbursts from the brass and strings. Sadly, I have not found anyone with a similar passion for this famous, but under appreciated, master.

Opinions of Bruckner's symphonies are as varied as grains of sand on the beach! Everybody who's a fan has a favourite recording, be it Karajan, Bohm, Furtwangler etc. However, my 'must have' recording is Guilini's interpretation of the D minor Ninth with the Vienna Philharmonic. Having been an avid collector of Bruckner for over 40 years, I can honestly say this recording still blows me away every time I hear it. Yes, it's too slow for many listeners, but the depth of spirituality which Guilini brings to this incredible music is immense and the sheer glory and power of the VPO is awe-inspiring. Taken from a live performance, this recording is one of DGG's best. In its totally inexorable, slowly developing way the overall effect is cataclysmic. I'd never really rated Guilini as a Bruckner conductor before I heard this. Oh boy, did I change my mind afterwards! If you've never heard it, I urge you to give it a try. It might just open your ears to a whole new experience if you're receptive to it.

My favorite Bruckner recordings is by Takashi Asahina (1908-2001) conducting Osaka Philharmonic Orchestra. Asahina was known as a Bruckner specialist and he recorded several cycles of the entire Bruckner symphonies, but his 1990's recordings are probably his best one. Amazon Japan and HMV Japan carry good catalogue of his recordings.

I'm like you, and have Karajan's Bruckner set, although in my case my teenage self bought it as angel-winged LPs one at a time as they were released from about 1976 onwards, each new one being enthusiastically looked forward to. I love them all (although I have to admit I prefer Eugen Jochum's Staatskapelle Dresden account of No. 2 on EMI). Today however I discovered Karajan's original 1966 recording of No. 9 on DGG (SLPM 139 011). I found the performance transformed my appreciation of the symphony. I always found Karajan's 1977 account a bit sluggish. Not so his 1966 effort. It's a good deal faster and the playing just seems more assured and the recording is better focussed and clearer. I found myself listening to it wide eyed in amazement at how different it sounded in the younger Karajan's hands. Whereas previously I listened to Karajan's 1977 account only occasionally, I'm so mesmerised by his 1966 performance, that I think it'll become one of my favourites! You've just GOT to hear it!